Folk and blues legend Chris Smither to perform in Plymouth

By Jay N. Miller/For The Patriot Ledger

Thursday

May 9, 2019 at 3:08 PMMay 12, 2019 at 7:41 PM

Chris Smither sings and plays the acoustic blues better than almost anyone ever has, embodying the way the music is ultimately about triumphing over travails, persevering through troubles, and, not infrequently, having a good time as you walk, or occasionally stumble, through life.

Smither was born in Miami but mostly grew up in New Orleans, where his father was a professor at Tulane University. Hooked on music from an early age, he emigrated to the Boston area in the folk boom of the 1960s, falling in with young performers like Bonnie Raitt. By 1971, Smither was releasing his debut album, “I’m A Stranger Too,” and he’s been at it ever since. There was a break of several years between albums, after major labels decided to divest themselves of folk artists, but by about 1985 Smither was on an indie label and hasn’t looked back. His last few albums have been on his own imprint, and distributed by New England’s own Signature Sounds.

Smither’s most recent album is last year’s “Call Me Lucky,” which includes eight new Smither originals, two covers, and a second disc of Smither covering a Beatles tune, and then re-interpreting five of the numbers from his own disc. It’s a bold move, essentially having two versions of five different songs in the package, but it works wonderfully because of how differently Smither does them. On the album, he’s accompanied by longtime producer and multi-instrumentalist David Goodrich, drummer Billy Conway from the band Morphine, Mike Meadows, and Mark Lorenz, the musician/one-man band better known as Suitcase Junket. While Smither’s dazzling guitar work is still a centerpiece of many of the songs, he’s also provided a few arrangements where the tunes are delivered with other instruments as the focal points, and it’s a fascinating collection.

The two covers on the first disc and the Beatles cover on the second are good examples of Smither’s unique approach to such things. Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” is transformed from the giddy rock sprint of the original to a quiet, minor key country-blues, with a wistful fiddle weaving throughout, in a treatment that exposes the dark undercurrent in the lyrics. The classic “Sittin’ On Top of the World” goes from its usual happy tone to a very much slower rendition that reveals the tune is really about a lost love. And then the Beatles “She Said She Said” goes from its original boisterous rock to a gorgeous acoustic guitar take that points up the deeper, metaphoric wordplay.

“We were having this whole vibe about covers in the studio,” Smither, 74, recalled. “How we can keep the concept fresh and what kind of songs to do? Chuck Berry just wrote such great lyrics, and that minor key version presented the song in a way we don’t hear. On the Beatles tune, I think their rock ‘n’ roll version obscures the kind of psychedelic mystery of the song. Doing some background research, I found that it came out of John Lennon tripping his brains out at a party, with Peter Fonda, at around the time of the ‘Easy Rider’ movie. Peter Fonda kept saying ‘I know what it’s like to be dead’ and it was freaking Lennon out. And I think that whole psychedelic aspect comes out and is much more apparent when you slow it down like we did.”

On the five Smither songs that are re-done, the initial impetus was that he wanted to prove they could be done in various configurations. There are some revelatory treatments, as for example the bright acoustic blues “Change Your Mind” becomes a slow and melancholy rumination, and the gentle, pensive folk tone of “By the Numbers” morphs into a lovely piano ballad. The folk/blues guitar textures of “Everything on Top” might see the most stunning change, turning into a gritty punk-rocker at full bore. The dreamy introspection of the folk/classical arrangement for “Down to the Sound” transforms into what could be heard as a Western ballad, equal parts Kris Kristofferson and Marty Robbins. The buoyant, finger-popping blues “Nobody Home” changes into a dark and lonely mood piece reminiscent of the latter-day Johnny Cash.

“Goody is always saying ‘People don’t cover your stuff enough,” Smither chuckled. “He said they tell him it’s because they don’t play guitar like me. So, to make the point that my songs are NOT all about guitar, but can be done in any arrangement, the whole covering myself thing began as kind of a goof. I set out to do entirely different arrangements, where I did not play guitar. Obviously the most radical one is where the sweet ballad becomes screaming punk rock. “

“That take on ‘Everybody on Top’ might be one where some of my fans say ‘Oh well, he has his moments,’” Smither said with a soft laugh. “They guys I’m working with are all younger, and so they stay up later, real studio rats who are in there until 3 or 4 a.m. every night. They came up with that version of ‘Everybody On Top’ and just had Matt doing a scratch vocal. The next morning I came in and they played it for me and asked if I thought I could put a vocal on top, and I said ‘Sure, I’ll give it a try.’ They kept challenging me that way, and finally we decided that these ‘covers’ were good enough that people ought to hear them.”

How that particular band came together is a simple story. Goodrich has been producing and playing on Smither albums since 2003, and they had worked with Conway before. When asked for any other suggestions, Smither, who lives in Amherst now, thought of his pal up the road.

“Matt Lorenz lives about five miles up the road,” Smither explained. “I was first introduced to him when he was in a group, Rusty Bill, with his sister and Zak Trojano, and it was really intriguing. I’ve had him come in and work with me on a couple projects. Matt is an incredibly inventive musician who brings that total sense of imagination into the studio.”

The latest album “Call Me Lucky” has a certain autobiographical feel to it, with a lot of the songs featuring introspective lyrics that try to sum up a hard-won perspective on life and love.

“I would say it all comes out of who I am and where I’ve been,” said Smither. “I inform the songs, certainly, but they are not directly autobiographical. But they do reflect the way I think.”

If he hasn’t been trying out those multiple versions of the same songs in his concerts yet, Smither admitted it is a tempting idea. Since he has 18 albums worth of material at this point, he does frequently pull out some older tunes, and perhaps re-interpret them a bit. Such a wealth of material also allows him to refresh his setlists, so it’s never stale or predictable for fans or singer.

“I think I can look back at this point, and try new things, and I have enough of an audience that they’ll cut me some slack,” Smither said. “I guess it’s amazing I haven’t done more topical songs, but those are difficult, because you don’t want to have one that’s too tied to the moment. I have not been doing the ‘covers’ of my own songs from this album, because I don’t play guitar on any of them. But that’s something I should perhaps work up an arrangement for at least one of them.”

“People really like hearing my older songs, but what gets me is that they often just assume it’s a new one,” Smither mused. “To hear that they think it’s new is so flattering in a way, but in another way, I’m thinking ‘Where’ve you been?’ I do have so many songs even I have trouble remembering all of them, so I will take about a week to work up three or four older ones to the level I want to be at for performing, before I go out on tour.”

Smither has never played at The Spire Center before, and fans can expect to hear music from the latest album, and from his lengthy career, done with that dazzling guitar technique and that burnished, evocative baritone.

Sandler sings

We have not always been a fan of Adam Sandler’s work, which can be just too silly. But his hosting duties last week on Saturday Night Live included one stunning musical moment, with his song remembering his late comic cohort Chris Farley. Performed solo with his guitar (check out the video on Youtube) Sandler’s song was simple but heartfelt, a wistful look back and plea to remember the funnyman. Yet is also included some cautionary details, revealing his friends had warned Farley of “becoming another Belushi,” making the memory of his demise that much more painful. If a goal of good music is to move the listener, Sandler’s simple song was a huge success.